The Everyday Human

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 31

Do not reply to such words of doubt. 

This is not to say you should never doubt. As discussed, doubt can be your partner—it can lead you from falsehoods into truths. It can be the catalyst for growth. 

But it can also be used as a weapon in the wrong hands, used to snuff the light of knowledge rather than stoke that flame.

Be wary when others bring doubt to you. Use your own trained-up companion to test their words and never feel obligated to engage when they come to you in bad faith.

• Reflection title: Reply with Caution, or Not at All
• Creative inspiration: William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence"
• Reflection question: Am I engaging with bad-faith questioners? Am I utilizing my doubt as a means to grow?

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 30

One morning, though, you woke and stepped to the window. Doubt told you to leave the curtains drawn for fear of the bright sun or prying eyes of the neighbors. And where you might have quickly agreed and slunk back to the shadows of the room, the spark of a question flared in your mind and so you asked: “Why, Doubt? Is the sun not good for my mind, skin, and eyes in measured amounts?”

Doubt could not answer this question.

“Why should I be wary of my neighbors? Those who share this land with me? Those who lend me their time and tools when I am in need?”

Doubt too could not answer this question.

The next day, Doubt issued you the same warnings and you posed the same questions in return. Doubt offered flimsy answers, but you pushed the argument further until you both sat down and conversed on the benefits and drawbacks of the sun and neighbors and you both reached the conclusion that in good measure, these things are good and will make you stronger.

And over the years, Doubt stayed with you. He pointed out things you might have missed, or things that demand more scrutiny. He became your trusted companion and advisor and through your friendship and training, he left behind the desire to destroy and replaced it with the desire to build.

• Reflection title: How To Train Your Doubt
• Creative inspiration: Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
• Reflection question: Am I working toward training my Doubt—and do I have a healthy relationship with it? Do I need more or less of it in my life?

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 29

Or that sensation of not feeling myself. The start of a cold? It’s that time of year. Exhaustion? I’ve been working 12 hour days between day-job writing and personal projects. 

Or is it something worse?

The thought is complicated.

I envision things going wrong a lot. Maybe too much.

I’ve spent the better part of the year reading and writing and reflecting. But the nights or dark mornings still bring out fear.

I’ve taught myself that death is natural and what’s natural is nothing to be afraid of.

Yet I still fear it. 

Is it possible?

To reach the stars and stop being afraid of nights and death while still on Earth?

Or must we leave forever to have the fears go and Death die?

The thought is complicated.

• Reflection title: When You Reach the Stars, Boy—
• Creative inspiration: Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree
• Reflection question: If I’m being honest with myself, what is that I’m still truly afraid of—including or not including nights and death?

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 28

The child sees the simple truth of a snake’s bite and understands its meaning. 

The grown-up, though, begs that it might be declared a bad dream.

The child allows laughter to join in their dance with fear.

The grown-up drinks of the child’s laughter but is afraid to let their own out.

The child knows what is important beyond the snakebite, beyond the ending.

The grown-up must relearn to see the essential in the unseen, for the skill is not gone, rather it is buried.

Fear is the dance partner of inevitable endings. 

And some adults would rather never start a story for fear of facing its end.

A child, though . . .

• Reflection title: The Child and the Grown-Up
• Creative inspiration: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
• Reflection question: Am I behaving as a child or grown-up in facing simple truths? And am I bringing laughter into my dance with fear?

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 27

I woke at 4:47 this morning with the thought that Fear might be some dark poet, studying the nuance of our condition and picking apart the moments to see which are best to write about.

I thought of Fear quietly walking in the woods, following my tracks and taking out their pen to note the spots I was caught in the thorns or where I tripped over the roots and rocks I could see but did not. They stopped behind me where I could not see them and watched as I crouched to examine the broad leaves by the lake where the dragonfly went to die. Only a husk remained, with its wings glistening faint in the dull October light, but it was a large insect and I imagined it had a comfortable life by the water where it was born and ate well.

Fear scribbled these things in their book to use in poems against me, though I doubt they saw it that way.

• Reflection title: Say Them Now or Carry Them With You
• Creative inspiration: Eastin DeVerna, Lux: From the Kingdom of Darkness
• Reflection question: What words am I leaving unsaid right now because of fear? Will I set them free or risk carrying them with me at the crossover?

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 26

The storm of anger sweeps in across the ocean of my mind in the morning but at night in its wake it leaves destruction and helplessness.

What I understand and am working to better embody is that neither extreme is helpful in any regard—though I do accept that it is human to have the same thing/event/circumstance cause you to feel at different times angry and helpless. And what this serves to do when I feel myself being pulled to either end of this ocean of emotion is to remind me to find the still waters of center, of stability and rationality, and drop anchor there—by way of moving my body or breathing or reading or writing or meditating or stepping into nature. To focus and see through the storm of anger or the fog of hopelessness to the other side.

No one ever makes a good decision in a fit of emotion—it’s natural to feel these, but we’re smarter and stronger than that, aren’t we? We can’t change what’s happening around us, but we have the power to focus through.

• Reflection title: Focus Through
• Creative inspiration: Eastin DeVerna, Lux: From the Kingdom of Darkness
• Reflection question: What is bringing me to my emotional extremes? How can I remain anchored and steady? How can I focus through?

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 25

You realize this truth and your impulse is to cut yourself with harsh words of reproach. But today, you don’t. You find for yourself compassion instead. You step back and look at the situations objectively. You step away from those who pull you down (including yourself) and move toward those who believe in you (also including yourself). You connect the dots back to the beginning and see the causes and their effects. 

You take the sharp edge of those words and instead of using them on yourself, you saw away at the rope around your waist until it falls to a pile at your feet like a dead snake. You turn and confront this boulder of self-doubt. It’s not even worth addressing, though, is it? It’s taken enough of your time and life already. No longer bound to it, you leave it where it is to fall victim to the winds and weather and time which slowly eat at it until it is little more than a pebble.

You move on.

You are free.

• Reflection title: Sever the Rope
• Creative inspiration: Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire
• Reflection question: How much has self-doubt hindered me in my life? What great things has it stopped me from accomplishing? What horrible things has it prolonged by trapping me? Am I ready to sever the rope and be free?
  
  

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 24

Knowledge is the weapon with which you destroy ignorance and without the womb of ignorance, fear cannot grow.

This is why those in power would keep us ignorant. 

This is why they would ban books and shutter schools and pull funding for the arts and humanities and sciences—because a fearful population is easy to control and an educated population is not a fearful population and therefore cannot be shackled by fear and those who would court it.

Choose to read.

Choose to travel.

Choose to speak with others.

Choose to think for yourself.

Choose to ask questions.

Choose to dig for and uncover the truth.

Ignorance and its offspring cannot survive this.

• Reflection title: Fear’s Kryptonite
• Creative inspiration: Herman Melville, Moby Dick
• Reflection question: Am I choosing ignorance and fear? Or am I putting in the work to sharpen my blade with knowledge through reading and travel and communication?

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 23

The beautiful thing is that with a bit of your own training, you can see right through Fear's strategy. You can work on your defense, or better yet, do your own studying and go on the attack. Though to do this, you must recognize and know your fear first. Take it out of shadow and look at it in the light. See it for what it really is: small, irrational, and born of your own mind. 

See what it’s doing to you, see its tricks and feints before it makes them. 

Knowing your opponent is how you win. 

• Reflection title: Round 1, Fight!
• Creative inspiration: Eastin DeVerna, Lux: From the Kingdom of Darkness
• Reflection question: Do I know my fear better than it knows me? Am I training myself to control it? How?

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 22

But what can we do to stop fear from festering? From taking control and taking our freedom?

Seek the truth. Always.

Seek the truth of what you are witnessing—without rationalization or justification or dramatization—seek the objective truth. Stop and write down your fear if you must. Getting it out of your head and onto paper dilutes it—it takes its power away from the swirling storms of your mind and pins it to the page with ink, showing it for the small and fragile thing it really is.

There are times, though, when the confusion, fear, dread, and doubt we feel—those things brought on by the sea of wonders of the world—are not lies and truly warrant our attention and must be addressed.

So when fear comes tickling at your back—first stop your mind from spiraling. Then Assess, Learn, Decide, and Act. 

• Reflection title: ALDA
• Creative inspiration: Bram Stoker, Dracula
• Reflection question: When it comes to my fear, am I letting instincts take over? Or am I assessing, learning, deciding, and acting accordingly?